Various approaches have been proposed for monitoring, simulating, or testing web sites. Examples include U.S. Pat. No. 6,278,966 B1 (Howard, et al., Aug. 21, 2001), Method and System for Emulating Web Site Traffic to Identify Web Site Usage Patterns. However, this example addresses substantially different problems (problems of simulation and hypothetical phenomena), and thus is significantly different from the present invention. Other examples include U.S. Pat. No. 6,078,956 (Bryant, et al., Jun. 20, 2000) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,787,254 (Maddalozzo, et al., Jul. 28, 1998). Other examples include services available from vendors such as Atesto Technologies Inc., Keynote Systems, and Mercury Interactive Corporation. These services may involve a script that runs on a probe computer. The examples mentioned above do not necessarily allow some useful comparisons.
It may be very useful to measure the performance of an application such as a web site, or some other application accessible to a number of users via a network. Concerning two or more such applications, it may be very useful to compare measurements of performance. However, accurate comparisons may be hampered by inconsistent measurements. Inconsistent or heavily customized measurement techniques are common. There are no generally-accepted guidelines or standards for measurement techniques to be used on applications that have been deployed in a production environment. Although the use of a probe is common, there are highly variable parameters for probing, such as values for timeouts, or sampling intervals for example. Inconsistent measurement techniques result in problems such as unreliable performance data, and increased costs for training and administration. Thus there is a need for systems and methods that solve problems related to inconsistent measurement.